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In The News

Comics Uniting Nations project update

Dear Friends:

We want to thank each and every one of you for your support in our Kickstarter campaign.

We set the bar extremely high for ourselves, and despite the generous pledges of our backers and some truly heroic efforts by the Reading With Pictures team, our contributors and our nonprofit and publishing partners, we just weren’t able to clear that bar in time.

But this does NOT mean that the Comics Uniting Nations project is finished. Far from it! Thanks to our recently-secured partnership with The World’s Largest Lesson, we will be helping produce a special comic designed to introduce the UN’s Global Goals for Sustainable Development to millions of students all over the world. We will also be facilitating the production and distribution of single-page comic stories donated by talented and passionate comic creators from around the globe.

We had hoped to do more, but we’re still bringing high-quality educational comics to an enormous number of students all over the world, and that is an incredible victory – one that wouldn’t have been possible without your support.

And if you would still like to contribute to the success of Comics Uniting Nations, you are invited to make a tax-deductible donation to Reading With Pictures by clicking here. All funds received through this link will be earmarked specifically for the Comics Uniting Nations project.

Thank you all so much for your continued support of this cause to bring free, high-quality educational comics to children all over the world.

Onward and upward!

Josh Elder
Founder and Executive Director
Reading With Pictures

April FUNdraising in Chicago for Reading With Pictures

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April in Chicago means two things are about to invade the Chicago lakeshore: beautiful springtime weather, and the Chicago Comics and Entertainment Expo (C2E2) at McCormick place! This year, Reading with Pictures is partnering with local event organizers CrawlNightLong (www.crawlnightlong.com) to make a month-long fundraising extravaganza.

FloSantos

Everything kicks off April 1st, when nearby South Loop pizza joint Flo & Santos (http://www.floandsantos.com) celebrates their 5th anniversary by serving up their April pizza of the month, a superhero-themed “The Flame” pie. With pepperoni, garlic, smoked ghost pepper mozzarella cheese, and sriracha sauce, this is surely a pizza you won’t forget. And to spice up the deal further, $2 from each pizza sold for the entire month of April will be donated to Reading With Pictures!

Then, during C2E2 weekend on Saturday, April 25th, we’re throwing an after party you won’t want to miss! It’s Super Hero vs. Villain at #supercrawl15, a cosplay bar crawl visiting all the highlights of the South Loop! The party kicks off at 6 pm at Reggie’s Music Joint, walking distance from McCormick Place and C2E2. A $10 donation gets you a wristband for raffle and drink specials all night!

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​We’ll light the fuse with a live performance by The Cell Phones (http://cellphonesband.com/) at Reggie’s at 7 pm, featuring the band performing their hits and some geeky classics while adorned in costume!

From there, our hoard of super-crawlers will explore the south loop, with multiple raffles and drink specials at every bar! Support your team – HEROES or VILLAINS – by buying the themed drink, and you’ll help determine which team “wins” that battle-bar! The winning team will get a raffle prize drawn — but we’ve got runner-up prizes too, plus every bar will be giving away prizes for their favorite costumes! We’ll be giving away fantastic prizes like bar gift certificates, gift bags from our sponsors, guitars, snowboards, White Sox tickets, grills, and more! And, of course, we’ll have a GRAND PRIZE at Flo & Santos at the end of the night for whichever team wins the most battles!

Stay tuned on Facebook and Twitter (@CrawlNightLong) for updates and announcements as we cram as much FUNdraising into April as we can!

 Crawl2

Happy Comics Out Loud! Day

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One of our proudest achievements is launching Comics Out Loud!, a day where we celebrate comic books in the classroom. This year we’ve had over 500 educators pledge to join us in this celebration. They are in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Russia, and Chile!

We don’t want to stop there though. We want to celebrate comics in the classroom year round! Help us make that a reality by pledging to make Comics Out Loud! Year Round.

Make Comics Out Loud! Year Round!

Make Comics Out Loud! Year Round!

AMP! Comics for Kids to publish Reading With Pictures: The Graphic Textbook

Andrews McMeel Publishing (AMP) has entered an agreement to publish READING WITH PICTURES: THE GRAPHIC TEXTBOOK, an educational graphic anthology produced by the nonprofit organization Reading With Pictures. The book will be released in August 2014.

THE GRAPHIC TEXTBOOK unites the finest creative talents in the comics industry with the nation’s leading experts in visual literacy to create a game-changing tool for the classroom and beyond. This full-color volume features more than a dozen short stories (fiction and nonfiction) that address topics in Social Studies, Math, Language Arts, and Science, through an immersive textual and visual experience that kids will enjoy. Highlights include George Washington: Action President by Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey,Doctor Sputnik: Man of Science by Roger Langridge, The Power of Print by Katie Cook, and many more. Common Core State Standards-correlated lesson plans customized to each story, research-based justifications for using comics in the classroom, a guide to establishing best classroom practices, and a comprehensive listing of educational resources will be available for educators and parents in conjunction with the release.

“The AMP! mission is to create books that kids love and their parents, teachers, and librarians support wholeheartedly,” said Kirsty Melville, President and Publisher, AMP Book Division. “Our collaboration with Reading With Pictures takes that mission to the next level, as this revolutionary format utilizes comics—what we at Andrews McMeel do best—in a way that fosters discovery and learning, and helps educators implement the Common Core standards.”

“Reading With Pictures is proud to be partnering with AMP! to bring THE GRAPHIC TEXTBOOK into schools, libraries and homes around the world,” said Josh Elder, the Founder and President of Reading With Pictures. “Our goal is to make educational content that kids will actually want to read, and no one knows more about what kids want to read than Andrews McMeel.”

About Andrews McMeel Publishing: Known as the premier producer of cutting-edge comics and best-selling humor, cookbook, gift, and nonfiction books, Andrews McMeel Publishing launched AMP! Comics for Kids in 2012, featuring comic strip collections curated for middle-grade readers, including New York Times bestseller Big Nate, Peanuts, Pearls Before Swine, and many others. Future titles include book two in the Desmond Pucket illustrated novel series, and graphic novel additions planned for summer 2014. Please visit ampkids.com for the full listing of titles.

About Reading With Pictures: Founded in 2009 by award-winning comic author Josh Elder (Mail Order Ninja, Scribblenauts), Reading With Pictures (RWP) is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that advocates for the use of comics in the classroom to promote literacy and improve educational outcomes for all students. In service to that mission, Elder travels to schools, libraries and academic conferences around the world to give lectures and seminar making the case for use of comics in the classroom. RWP also curates an open source database of lesson plans and research studies focused on comics and visual learning, one of the largest of its kind in the world. Reading With Pictures gets comics into schools and gets schools into comics. For more information, please visit readingwithpictures.org.

This partnership is already at work!  AMP’s Teaching with Comics and Illustrated Novelsguide, currently being distributed to educators, features Reading With Pictures. Click the images to download the PDF from Andrews McMeel. 

Magazines Deliver Holiday Gift of Literacy to Arctic Children and Families

While Santa’s helpers ready good cheer for the globe, “Team Duffy” – Beth, Dan, and their two children Rachel and Eddie in Ontario, Canada have marshalled a continental response to airlift over 3,000 magazines and comics to Inuit children and families north of the Arctic Circle in Nunavut, Canada for literacy.

Answering a request received by MagazineLiteracy.org from Nunavut schools, the Duffy family and their school – Villanova College of King City, Ontario – joined forces with Dan’s firm, Mid-Range Computer Group, and Owlkids, publishers of Owl, Chirp, and Chickadee magazines – to send magazines this week to readers in the Kugluktuk, Taloyoak, Gjoa Haven, Kugaaruk and Cambridge Bay communities in northern Canada. Comics collected in the United States by Comics For Heroes and Reading with Pictures, and magazines from Condé Nast, including Condé Nast Traveler will also be sent to the Inuit readers.

Learn more about the great work that was done here!

Reading With Pictures launches comic book holiday drive for #GivingTuesday

#GivingTuesday

Last year after the tragedy of Sandy Hook, Reading With Pictures launched an emergency comic book drive to donate family friendly comic books to the families of that community.  We were able to coordinate over 500 unique donations toward this drive.

This year, we will build upon that success while also joining in a national movement called #GivingTuesday.  On December 3, 2013 we will officially begin accepting donations for our holiday comic book drive that will be donated to the children at Comer Children’s Hospital in Chicago, IL.

We are asking folks to donate comic books to this drive and will run the drive through January 3.  We are asking for new and gently used comic books that are family friendly and all ages appropriate.  Comer Children’s Hospital also has other needs as well and you can learn more about that here.

On a local level in Chicago we currently have two drop off locations.  They also have great children’s comics sections too!

– Third Coast Comics (6234 N Broadway St, Chicago, IL 60660 – map)

Comix Revolution : Evanston (606 Davis St, Evanston, IL 60201 – map)

You may also coordinate a mailing of your donation to:

Reading With Pictures
4448 N. Beacon, Unit 2
Chicago, IL 60640

If you would like to start a local comic book drive for your own community, please reach out by emailing us at info@readingwithpictures.org and we’ll assist in that.

Interested in supporting our mission in honor of #GivingTuesday?  Click below!  Everyone who donates through this campaign will be entered into a special raffle that rewards the winner with a special Reading With Pictures creative package of art and comics!

Donate to #GivingTuesday!

 

Many thanks to our Publishing Sponsor!
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Josh Elder Talks Literacy on NPR!

Josh Elder Talks Literacy on NPR

Josh Elder was interviewed on NPR’s Front and Center as part of a discussion on Creating a Culture of Literacy.

Trevor Mueller interviewed on We Are the Geek

Trevor Mueller (Reading with Pictures, Albert the Alien) was interviewed on Uncle Yo’s podcast We Are the Geek.

The interview reviews Trevor’s body of work, including web comics and convention panels, and eventually concludes with his work on Reading with Pictures. Be sure to check out the awesome and hilarious interview.

RWP Marketing Director Trevor Mueller interviewed at ACEN

Reading with Pictures Marketing Director Trevor Mueller is interviewed at ACEN in April of this year. The interview is a little lengthy, but around the 20 minute mark he talks about the latest and greatest on the RWP organization and the kickstarter campaign.

Check it out here.

RWP Marketing Director Trevor Mueller Interviewed at C2E2

Reading with Pictures Marketing Director Trevor Mueller was interviewed at C2E2 in April by Pocket Entertainment. Check out the latest and greatest from Reading with Pictures, and help support the kickstarter campaign which ends May 17.